Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland ： with a view of the

Motley, John Lothrop, 1814-1877Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2

Word count: 209K words
Chapters: 21

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of theAuthor: Motley, John Lothrop, 1814-1877,Language: English, Class: DH: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Release Date: Jan 1, 2004

Editor's review

This book follows the life of the Dutch statesman John of Barneveld, tracing both the rise and fall of his political career and his dramatic death, using them to reveal the complex interplay of political and religious factions in the Dutch Republic after independence. Motley excels at organizing historical material around individuals, writing parliamentary debates, factional struggles, and diplomatic maneuvering with a sense of plot, so that readers can glimpse the institutional tensions of the early Republic through one man's fate. As a public-domain ebook, it works well as supplementary reading focused on a person in the history of the Dutch Revolt, and for readers interested in early modern political trials and factional politics. Note that the author's narrative carries a pronounced partisan slant, and his judgments of individuals are not settled conclusions; readers should compare it with more neutral general histories. The book is in English and is not short; readers are advised to understand the political structure of the United Provinces first.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in early Dutch Republic political history and biography
Readers who want to understand factional and religious conflict through individual lives
Readers with solid English skills willing to take on a long historical narrative
Students or teachers needing public-domain biographical source material as background reading

Not a good fit for

Readers with no background in Dutch history who want only light storytelling
Those who struggle with English and do not want to check background information
Readers expecting modern biographical psychological analysis and scholarly annotations

Reading tips

First understand the relationship between the States General and offices such as stadtholder and advocate, then read the individual's career
Keep separate notes on religious factional disputes to clarify the lines of conflict
Slow down at the trial and death sections, reading them against the surrounding political context
After finishing, find a neutral general history chapter on the Dutch Republic for cross-checking

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Who was John of Barneveld?

He was an important political figure in the early Dutch Republic, long serving as Advocate of Holland, and stood at the center of the political and religious controversies after the war of independence, ultimately being tried and executed amid factional strife. The book uses his life as a thread to present the tensions in the early Republic's power structure.

Is this book related to Motley's other works on Dutch history?

Yes. Motley wrote several works on the Dutch revolt against Spain and the early Dutch Republic, and this book can be seen as an extension in the same field, focusing on internal politics after independence rather than foreign war. Readers of his Dutch history works will find it easier to enter this book's context.

Are the book's judgments of individuals objective?

The author carries a nineteenth-century liberal stance, showing considerable sympathy for Barneveld and criticizing the opposing faction rather directly. This is not a neutral, unbiased narrative; readers should treat it as history writing with a viewpoint and read it alongside other general histories or studies for a sounder understanding.

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About the author

Motley, John Lothrop, 1814-1877 Author

John Lothrop Motley (1814–1877) was an American historian and diplomat, known for his historical works on Dutch independence and the Dutch Revolt. His major work, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, narrates in detail how the Dutch provinces threw off Spanish rule and established a republican government, combining rigorous scholarship with a strong narrative drive. His History of the United Netherlands continues the account of political and military developments from the death of William the Silent to the end of the sixteenth century. The collection here contains 103 of his works, mostly different volumes and editions of these general histories. Public information is limited, so biographical details are omitted; his works show a respect for primary sources and a talent for portraying major historical turning points, and they have had a lasting influence on the study of Dutch history in the English-speaking world.