Talk:Trial of Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius and Hogerbeets

Design for article

It is almost 400 years ago that the Treason trial of Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius, Hogerbeets, and Ledenberg was held, and Oldenbernevelt was executed on 13 May 1619. Because of this "anniversary" and because of the importance of the trial in Dutch history it seems that a wikipedia article is timely. The event is already mentioned in an number of other articles, like Twelve Years' Truce, the biographies of the defendants, and Hof van Holland. I therefore intend to focus on the legal and constitutional-history aspects of the case, which require explanation for Dutch and non-Dutch audiences. It will take me a few days, or even weeks, to finish the article, so I hope my fellow-wikipedians will bear with me.

I propose the following outline of the article: Background (Constitutional "maxims" of the Oldenbarnevelt regime - the "Truce Quarrels - the Dutch law of treason - Criminal procedure in the Dutch Republic), The trial (Arrest of the defendants - Constitution of the court - The interrogations -The "intendit" - The verdict - Executions), Aftermath. I have already started with the lede and the list of sources.--Ereunetes (talk) 22:17, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I have now finished the article. It may need some brushing up, and I may tinker with it for a while, but the main work is done. I initially planned to make the Aftermath section much larger, but on reflection I think it is long enough with just the main relevant facts that pertain to the article. After all, there are biographical articles about all the main protagonists in the article that do sufficient service. I have also left out a number of critical comments I might have made. For instance several historians are highly critical about Grotius' "craven" attitude while in captivity, and his apparent attempt to "denounce" Oldenbarnevelt on several subjects (see the documents "A" and "B" that Fruin published in his collection). But that needs an appreciable amount of text to also give the arguments in defense of his behavior. I don't think the matter is important enough, especially as the incriminating material appears not to have been used for Oldenbarnevelt's conviction. Many Dutch historians discuss the question whether the trial was a "judicial murder", concluding that it was not. I am not impressed by their arguments for this mild judgment ("What did I miss?"), but I have decided to let it ride; it remains a matter for personal judgment. For the same reason I have decided not to go into the despicable role of Maurice. That would require delving into his personal life of debauchery with concubines and other "loose women", hardly what one might expect from someone so intent on "defending the true religion as at one time founded", and studiously overlooked by the Counter-Remonstrant preachers. Discussing the different aspects of the matter would make the article double this size. One final note: I have considered putting a paragraph into the Aftermath section in which I wonder whether the coming 400-year anniversary of Oldenbarnevelt's execution would not warrant an apology by either the current Dutch government (always ready nowadays for apologizing about the more sinister aspects of Dutch history like Srebrenica, colonialism, slavery, "Black Peter" and so on) or maybe king Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (who after all is related to Maurice (in the female line by way of Maurice's half-brother Frederick Henry). I think it would be a good idea, but I am sure some wikipedians would consider it "un-encyclopedic".--Ereunetes (talk) 21:39, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to sound smug, but if there would be any doubt about the need for this article I only have to point to the biased and uninformed treatment by one of my sources, Motley (who I have quoted several times in the article to show there are no hard feelings on my part). The link in the "cite web" of this source points to the page where he starts the discussion of the verdict in his article about the trial (Motley pp. 191-195). If one compares it with my article one will see that he gives an adequate paraphrase of the contents of that verdict, but that he has not understood the first thing about the real legal issues with that verdict. His comments are written from the standpoint of a 19th-century American liberal who implicitly takes the Anglo-Saxon legal system as the standard for all things legal. Now I sympathize with his feelings of abhorrence about the treatment meted out to Oldenbarnevelt, but they are based on the wrong preconceptions. As Motley is still in print, and apparently even popular among Americans interested in Dutch history of the era, so that what he writes may still be the only description of the events of 400 years ago that many Americans will ever read, I maintain that a different point of view is useful in wikipedia.--Ereunetes (talk) 19:20, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Improvements needed

Dear @Ereunetes:, let me start by commending you for writing this extensive article on one of the pivotal events in Dutch history, as you rightly stated above in your Design section. It adds to your other great efforts in writing about the history of the Dutch Republic on English Wikipedia as a native Dutch speaker (which I am as well; you might guess that by my name ;). In fact, we might have cooperated a bit in the past already, but I'm not sure), which also includes rewriting/expanding Patriottentijd, Orangism (Dutch Republic), First Stadtholderless period, Second Stadtholderless period, and Prussian invasion of Holland (which I actually originally created). This Trial article taught me many things I never knew, and clarifies parts of the events that I never understood. However, I am worried by a number of issues that I think I see in the current text.

To start, I completely agree with you that Motley frequently misrepresents the history of this period. In my recently published article Historiography of the Eighty Years' War (which has its own issues, feel free to point them out, or correct them yourself), I have dedicated a large section to The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856) by Motley, a book that was initially very well received by both Bakhuizen van den Brink (who translated it to Dutch) and by Fruin, both of whom are considered some of the greatest Dutch historians of the mid-19th century. Yet, Johannes van Vloten and Nuyens completely panned the book, and Fruin gradually had to admit he had been fooled by Motley's beautiful poetic style of writing, and a message that was appealing to Protestants and nationalists. (I must admit, when I started writing about the Eighty Years' War on Dutch Wikipedia back in 2008, I was also taken in by Motley's coverage of the 1566–1567 events that no other book on Google Books, or any other text on the Internet at the time, really, appeared to be talking about. But by 2012 I realised Motley was full of ****). Motley may well be considered a pseudo-scholar: he misleads, exaggerates and misrepresents so much of history in ways that a scholar should know is unethical. Whenever Motley contradicts another source, we should distrust, reject and remove Motley. My advice is to purge all references to Motley from Wikipedia, and replace them with more reliable sources (I myself must also do this for my earlier writings).

We can agree that John Lothrop Motley best be taken with a shipload of salt. However, to purge Wikipedia entirely of references to him and his works seems a bit extreme. It would also require an inordinate amount of work.--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I meant to say we should purge Motley on a case-by-case basis: whenever we see a citation referring to Motley, I think our default course of action should be to delete it and the claim attached to it, unless a more reliable source confirms the claim, in which case the reliable source can replace Motley. At this point I don't think it's necessary to blacklist Motley and have a bot purge all cites to him; that would require a broad discussion and consensus which seems unnecessary atm. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Second, a lot of this text appears to contain Dutchisms: literally translated words or phrasea that don't quite fit in English, or in the given context. One example is the sentence "This term has defeated many historians." (I think you translated verslagen literally, and "puzzled" would be better?) As a fellow native Dutch speaker, I am vulnerable to making such mistakes as well, and I'm probably not the right person to try and fix it, because I am trained as historian, not a jurist. The main problem will probably be that we need a native English speaker who understands Roman/continental law, legal early modern Dutch and legal New Latin, even though most native Anglophones will only be familiar with Anglo-Saxon common law systems (this is one of the major objections you had against Motley, and this is probably correct). I think it could be a good idea if we would ask for help from an expert at Wikipedia:WikiProject Law. If there is any person who can help us, I think we'll find them there. What do you think? [Nederlandse Leeuw]

This article has been assessed by someone from the WikiProject Law. Maybe we could approach him. I have changed "defeated" to "puzzled" as suggested.--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Alright, that's good. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:14, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Third, I think the style and tone of this article are in need of improvement. Some of these things are subtle issues where my concerns might be misplaced or exaggerated, others are more overt problems that I think we need to address.

• I generally agree that many aspects of this trial were probably irregular/illegal/unconstitutional, but in several places, I think the text fails to be encyclopedic, objective and neutral in its description of the facts. Usually, this amounts to either a pro-Oldenbarnevelt or anti-Maurice bias. In your Design section above you mention "the despicable role of Maurice", which is a fine opinion to have (and I privately somewhat agree with), but seems to confirm the pro-Oldenbarnevelt pattern that I think is present in the text, and that I think you'll agree does not belong in the text per WP:NPOV. [Nederlandse Leeuw]

Fortunately, I did not use the qualification "despicable" in the article itself.--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

True, but I mentioned this as a reason for my concern that the opinion you expressed on the talk page may have also unduly influenced the contents of the article itself in a way that is incompatible with NPOV. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• At other times, I am getting a vague impression that this text was written by an American person who loves "states' rights" and has an axe to grind with the U.S. federal government. E.g. framing the Dutch States Army as a "federal" army is using U.S. terminology in a way that Dutch historians never do (the word "federal" is used 7 times to refer to the States-General army, and once to the 'federal budget'). It is perhaps even more striking that, when discussing Oldenbarnevelt's job, the text uses the term "confederal": "Oldenbarnevelt took the lead in promoting a number of constitutional reforms in his own province (and through its preponderant role in the Republic also on the confederal level". The term "confederation" (or statenbond) is actually often applied by Dutch historians to characterise the Republic, so that may actually be fine. But there is an odd inconsistency between these two: Oldenbarnevelt is running a confederal Republic, Maurice is commanding a federal States Army. This juxtaposition is suspect. If one reads between the lines, one may conclude "Oldenbarnevelt = good, therefore confederal = good; Maurice = bad, therefore federal = bad." See what I mean? The implicit message is that the "federal" army is the odd one out, because it doesn't fit the supposed "confederal" structure of the Republic (and so, Oldenbarnevelt was right and Maurice was wrong), which may mislead readers. I think we should be consistent in applying these two terms, or not using them at all to prevent misleading the readers in such a way. Especially because the question whether the Republic was federal or confederal, and thus whether the States had the authority to set up its own militia/military or that the Union/Generality/States-General had a monopoly on the armed forces, is at the heart of the conflict, I think both terms should actually be avoided. [Nederlandse Leeuw]

I think you read too much in my use of the words "federal" and "confederal". I admit to being a U.S. citizen, but I am not an "Anti-Federalist" in the accepted sense of that term. Anyway, I have changed "federal" to "confederal" in all instances. I hesitated about using the word "confederal" instead of "confederate", but it is a genuine English word according to the Oxford dictionary, and "confederate" in combination with "army" might elicit the wrong associations.--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, well I'm a bit surprised by the fact that you're a U.S. citizen (I didn't know that, although I just read on your nlwiki talk page that you live in the West Coast), but I guess I was onto something when I perceived U.S. terminology in the text. ;) "confederal" is probably the best term in this context, if any is necessary, although I'd repeat/add that this is a modern historiographical term of comparison in non-scholarly literature for modern readers, not a term used at the time, certainly not in a military context, and I rarely see it used in scholarly texts. Staatse leger / States Army or perhaps Unieleger / leger der Unie / Union Army is probably more historical, although this may well be confusing for U.S. readers to whom "Union" refers to the federal level and "States" to the level below it, whereas in the Dutch Republic context "States/Staten" or "Staatse" is often an abbreviation of "States-General" or "Staten-Generaal", not of the States of particular provinces such as the States of Holland en Westfriesland. But, especially if English-language literature on the Dutch Republic's military such as Israel or Parker uses the term "confederal", then that is fine by me. Indeed, the word "confederate" and "confederacy" are sometimes used for certain historical contexts, such as the CSA, the Irish Confederate Wars of the Old Swiss Confederacy, but especially because of the first, I would agree to avoid the term wherever it could elicit the wrong associations. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You are so right! Why didn't I think of this myself? :-) (I wrote the article Dutch States Army myself back in 2010). So I changed most instances of "confederal army" into "States Army". The wikilink was already in the article at the first mention of the word.--Ereunetes (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

• More importantly, Note 1 makes a claim that I find dubious: "These "maxims" would become the bones of contention during the crisis that led up to the trial and would be changed during the trial, but before these events they were generally accepted; Cf. Uitterhoeve, p. 186". Uitterhoeve is cited, which seems a reliable source, but I highly doubt that this was the case. This is exactly what a pro-Oldenbarnevelt/anti-Maurice source would say in order to claim that everyone agreed until Maurice came along, opportunistically challenged the consensus and seized power, rather than that the maxims had already been in dispute. For one thing, when exactly does Uitterhoeve mean with "before these events"? Pre-1607? Pre-1610? Pre-1617? (At any rate, if I didn't know you were Dutch, I might suspect the author was an American fan of the Confederacy trying to use this article as a means to support the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, or something like that. Lost Cause folks typically assert that not only that the American Civil War was all about "states' rights", but also that the states had always had a generally accepted degree of sovereignty that the federal government / Lincoln was all of the sudden questioning, and violating, in order to increase their own power at the cost of the states. It could just be a coincidence, and that I'm seeing things that you didn't even want to remotely imply, but I find the similarities striking, and I had to point it out). Note 1 might amount to poisoning the well: the reader is presented with the assertion that Oldenbarnevelt had always been right, before the details of the conflict are described. I don't think Note 1 is acceptable in its current form, but perhaps you could quote the relevant parts of "Uitterhoeve, p. 186" to clarify it? [Nederlandse Leeuw]

This is the most fundamental criticism. I think Maurice himself would have agreed with Oldenbarnevelt's "maxims" as enumerated in the relevant section, until it became more convenient to take a different standpoint. (Maurice never struck me as a "deep" thinker, though). I think the important point is that in the history of the Dutch Republic as a whole there was a constant tug-of-war between the proponents of the "sovereignty of the Generality" and those of the "sovereignty of the provinces". The Orangists preferred the first standpoint and the States Party the second. Oldenbarnevelt was a clear example of the States Party vision; one might say he invented it. But that designation is of course an anachronism , as the States party was only "invented" after the start of the First Stadtholderless period. I think Oldenbarnevelt and Maurice themselves did not yet think in terms of this constitutional contradiction. I think the Dutch followers of Leicester would have been early exponents of the "anti-Oldenbarneveltian" vision , but they had been rather deftly sidelined by the Oldenbarnevelt faction in 1588. I think that view is supported by Israel, among others.--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

While discussing these interesting constitutional views is tempting, I think we should remain focused on the text (WP:NOTFORUM). I'll limit myself to just saying that the States' Party and Orangism had a more complicated set of differences, as well as similarities, than some of the commonly attributed points such as Union vs. States, war vs. trade, army vs. navy, monarchy vs. republic etc. and that these weren't as black-and-white as often suggested (you acknowledged as much yourself by saying the "States Party" was only "invented" after 1672; I suppose you are referring to the Loevestein faction? Oldenbarnevelt and similarly Grotius have been retroactively associated with it, but died before it emerged as such).

What is relevant here is if you could quote the relevant parts of "Uitterhoeve, p. 186" to clarify Note 1? If Israel or someone else says the same thing somewhere else, you could quote him instead, that's fine by me, as long as we can verify this contentious claim. It's probably relatively easy to demonstrate Maurice violated certainly military, political and legal procedures during the coup, arrests and trial. But it doesn't follow from that alone that Oldenbarnevelt had always been right all along about the maxims of state, let alone that basically everyone including Maurice agreed with him until it suddenly became "inconvenient" for Maurice, as you say you think. I'd like to a reliable source stating this. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 03:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I paraphrased Uitterhoeve p. 186. You could look it up yourself, but I suppose you don't have the book and the text is not available on Google books. So I have copied the relevant paragraph (although the text is more extensive)

"Maar inzake de essentie, de maximen,  meen ik dat  hij [Oldenbarnevelt]  het gelijk aan zijn zijde heeft gehad. Samengevat behelsden deze maximen: gewetensvrijheid, maar geen godsdienstvrijheid; soevereiniteit in handen van de gewestelijke Staten, niet van de Staten-Generaal; gezag van de gewestelijke Staten en de plaatselijke magistraat over de publieke kerk; reservering van de politieke besluitvorming voor de regenten van de steden en de gewesten; de vrijheid van de steden en de gewesten om zelf ordetroepen in te zetten; de stadhouders als dienaren van de Staten, -- al deze maximen zoals die tot in de bestandstwisten algemeen aanvaard werden, heeft hij in acht genomen en toegepast. Daarom is het doodvonnis buiten proportie en was er eigenlijk ook geen grond voor een strafproces. De zaak ligt juist andersom. Het is Maurits geweest  die de geldende maximen is gaan ondergraven en nieuwe maximen heeft willen  introduceren, vooral  inzake een versterking van de  positie van de generaliteit, van de Staten-Generaal en vam hemzelf  als stadhouder  en opperbevelhebber. (p.186)" As this is written in Dutch, it does not seem useful to quote it in the article. In any case, the usual policy is to check the reference if you don't trust it.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

• The text lacks sources in several places where a possibly contentious claim is made. A prime example of this is: "Finally, the Hof would insist on following existing law and precedent, and here the case for the prosecution was extremely weak, as will become clear in the sequel." This reads like an opinion. It sounds like the readers should already make up their minds about where this trial is going to go before details are given why the prosecution's case was supposedly extremely weak. No source is provided, but even with a source, this seems like a scholar getting ahead of themselves). I do not think this sentence is acceptable in its current form. [Nederlandse Leeuw]
  

I have changed "as will become clear in the sequel" to "as Oldenbarnevelt pointed out in his defense". Because Oldenbarnevelt's main defense during his interrogations was the legal weakness of the prosecution's case. He was what one could call "a lawyers's lawyer".--Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

That's better, but I think it doesn't quite resolve the matter. "Pointed out" assumes Oldenbarnevelt was right, which is however part of the original dispute between him and Maurice. An NPOV phrasing would be "argued" or "stated". And the sentence still lacks an RS. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 03:27, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I think "pointed out" is quite innocuous, but (bending over backwards) I have changed this to "argued".--Ereunetes (talk) 20:30, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

• As for potential apologies by Dutch governmental officials in the present, that is actually a very interesting question that is well worth mentioning in my view, and if there are any RS for that, it would be a fitting addition. (FYI I ended my Historiography article with a similar remark from Arie van Deursen (2000): "If there was a court of history, it would unambigiously pronounce a guilty verdict over Maurice." That might be worth copypasting.)

In all cases: please correct me if I'm wrong. [Nederlandse Leeuw]

Fourth, some claims appear to be simply incorrect. E.g. the text frequently refers to Maurice as "Captain general (of the Dutch States Army)", but he never occupied that office. To quote Encarta Winkler Prins (2002), s.v. "Maurits [Nederlanden": "Op 1 nov. 1585 stelden de Staten van Holland en die van Zeeland hem aan als stadhouder alsmede als kapitein-generaal en admiraal van deze gewesten. Tijdens het verblijf van de graaf van Leicester (eind 1585 – eind 1587) werd hij door Johan van Oldenbarnevelt sterk gepousseerd. Door diens toedoen werd hij in april 1588 door de Staten-Generaal aangesteld tot admiraal-generaal der Unie en in 1590 benoemden ook de Staten van Utrecht, Gelderland en Overijssel hem tot stadhouder en kapitein-generaal van hun provincie. Op 8 maart 1589 werd hij bevelhebber van alle Staatse troepen; de officiële titel van kapitein-generaal der Unie is hem nooit toegekend." In Geschiedenis der staatsinstellingen in Nederland tot den val der Republiek p. 206-207 (1901) Fruin/Colenbrander, it says: "Wel was Maurits in 1588 admiraal-generaal der Unie gemaakt, maar zelfs kapitein-generaal der Unie is hij nooit geweest. Den 15den Mei 1587 was hij op voorstel van Holland benoemd tot generaal van het leger bij afwezigheid van Leicester. Toen nu Leicester voor goed heengegaan was, stelde Holland voor, dit te bestendigen en hem dus aan te stellen tot kapitein-generaal der Unie (8 Maart 1589). Het werd verworpen ; Friesland vreesde te zeer van troepen ontbloot te zullen worden, als een ander dan haar stadhouder over haar troepen gebood. Wel was aangenomen, dat Maurits het bevel zou hebben over de troepen van Brabant en Vlaanderen, die thans op de rol der Generaliteit stonden, en ook, dat hij steeds het geheele leger -zou commandeeren, wanneer het in de Generaliteitslanden te velde stond (6 September 1588). Evenmin had het gevolg, dat Holland in 1609 voorstelde Maurits te verheffen tot het "Gouvernement ende Capiteynschap van alle de Vereenigde Nederlanden." Willem Lodewijk zou dan zijn luitenant zijn in Friesland, Groningen en Drente. Willem Lodewijk wilde wel, maar Friesland niet. Ook Groningen en Overijsel stemden tegen." (By the way, in an unsourced statement in nl:Kapitein-generaal#Nederlanden, it says: "Na de Opstand der Nederlanden werd Maurits van Nassau in 1589 officieel aanvoerder van het Staatse leger. In die functie noemde hij zich kapitein-generaal der Unie, hoewel die titel door de Staten-Generaal werd geweigerd.") So what may be happening here is that Maurice illegally called himself captain-general, and historians have been misled by that fact, or that he de facto served as such, even though he was explicitly denied the title/office twice. Does it really say 'captain-general or 'kapitein-generaal' in your sources? If so, they are probably mistaken; if not, you are probably mistaken. Particularly in an article dedicated to the minutiae of the law, I don't think this is an acceptable error. (Ironically, denying Maurice the title of captain-general would actually favour the pro-Oldenbarnevelt side, because it weakens his Union authority over the States, if he had any). But I think that matters such as this one in this fourth category are things you and I can probably easily agree on if we take another look at the sources. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

You are right that Maurice had not been formally appointed to the position of Captain-General of the Union. I have pointed this out in a footnote at the apposite point in the text, with a reference to Israel.

As you see I have made a number of edits to answer your valuable objections. Thanks very much for your constructive criticisms. I would invite you to make further edits if you think them advisable. --Ereunetes (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

You're very much welcome! I'll look at them in more detail later. For now I've added my username behind my statements so that it's easier for us and anyone else reading this talk page to understand who wrote what after you gave in-line answers to my points (which is practical, because it allows us to focus on specifics). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Just a heads-up: I will get back to you here, but other things (including your feedback on my talk page and at Talk:Historiography of the Eighty Years' War) demanded my attention first. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2023 (UTC)