Abstract
After the Dutch Republic signed a truce with Spain, political and religious tensions nearly destroyed the emerging nation. At its heart, the conflict concerned the proper relationship between the authority of individual provinces and the nation. This crisis reached its highest point when the stadholder, Maurits of Nassau, toppled the Advocaat of Holland, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, enabling the National Synod of Dort to convene. Within three months of Oldenbarnevelt’s execution, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger brought a politically-charged tragedy to the stage. The play uses this Dutch crisis to comment on similar issues in England. Even after suffering two rounds of censorship, Barnavelt demands that English audiences recognize their own challenges in the civil war that had recently been averted in the Dutch Republic.
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Notes
- 1.
Copie van sekeren Brief uyt Dordrecht van een Goet Patriot (n.p., 1618), A1v. Fred van Lieburg has discovered that one of these “learned” contributors was London’s Dutch Church’s Simeon Ruytinck, who published a history of Dutch synods in 1618. “Dordrecht’s own Decretum Horribile: The Acta Synodi Behind the Scenes or the Role of Emotions in the History of Theology,” in The Doctrine of Election in Reformed Perspective: Historical and Theological Investigations of the Synod of Dordt 1618-1619, ed. Frank van der Pol (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), 99.
- 2.
Des Eerw: Bischops van Landavien Oratie (The Hague: 1618), A2r. The English version appeared early the next year. An Oration Made at the Hage, Before the Prince of Orenge, and the Assembly of the High and Mighty Lords, the States Generall of the Vnited Prouinces (London, 1619).
- 3.
They wrote the play sometime between 8 May 1619, when John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton in the Hague that news of Oldenbarnevelt’s execution had reached England (SP 14/109/18) and 14 August 1619 when Thomas Locke wrote to Dudley Carleton to informs him that “The Players heere were bringing of Barnavelt vpon the stage … but at th’instant were prohibited by my Lo[rd] of London” (SP 14/110/18).
- 4.
Richard Dutton discusses Buc’s censorship. Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of English Renaissance Drama (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991), 208. Janet Clare argues that Bartnavelt demonstrates Buc’s oppressive censorship. “Art made tongue-tied by authority”: Elizabethan and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1999), 197. T. H. Howard-Hill argues that Buc added personal interests to official distaste for Oldenbarnevelt. “Buc and the Censorship of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt in 1619,” RES 39 (1988), 56.
- 5.
See Locke’s letter, SP 14/110/18. The bishop may have objected because he staunchly opposed Arminian ideas. Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 21. Andrew Gurr considers the possibility that Bishop King bowed to popular demand in permitting the play to go forward. The Shakespearian Playing Companies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 135–6.
- 6.
John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, “The Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt,” 1.2.3, 5–6. I distinguish between the historical “Advocaat,” “Oldenbarnevelt,” and the dramatic “Barnavelt” or “Advocate.” Similarly, I differentiate between the historical “Maurits” and the play’s “Prince,” or “Orange.”
- 7.
On 27 August 1619, Locke wrote to Dudley Carleton to say that “Our players have found the meanes to goe through w[i]th the play of Barnevelt & it hath had many spectators & receaued applause.” SP 14/110/37.
- 8.
Henry Peacham praised Maurits for leading an Anglo-Dutch force in the contested Jülich-Cleves succession. A Most Trve Relation of the Affaires of Cleve and Gvlick (London, 1615), B2 r. Though Overbury praised Oldenbarnevelt’s diplomatic wisdom, the Advocaat miscalculated in the 1614 maneuvers, resulting in the loss of Wesel and the treaty of Xanten.
- 9.
Andrew Gurr discusses this early Jacobean practice of kee** contemporary statesmen out of plays. The Shakespeare Company, 1594–1642 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 172.
- 10.
Markku Peltonen locates republicant threads in early modern England. Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 12. See David Norbrook, Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 40.
- 11.
Israel describes the advantageous terms of the Twelve Years Truce. Dutch Republic, 404.
- 12.
Tractaet vande Ovdtheyt vande Batavische nv Hollandsche Republique (The Hague, 1610), ¶3r.
- 13.
As Jan den Tex argues, the problem derived from an ambiguous “conflict of two rights, not of right and wrong.” Oldenbarnevelt, trans. R. B. Powell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 2:511.
- 14.
Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (New York: Abingdon, 1971), 138.
- 15.
Freya Sierhuis surveys the period’s dynamic Dutch “literary culture of religious controversy.” The Literature of the Arminian Controversy: Religion, Politics, and the Stage in the Dutch Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 16.
- 16.
Hugo Grotius, “In Mortem Iacobi Arminii,” in Poemata Collecta (Leiden, 1617), 304, 306.
- 17.
Den Tex describes the circumstances of the Remonstrance, Oldenbarnevelt, 457.
- 18.
Tractaet van t’Ampt (The Hague, 1610), 87.
- 19.
Grotius would echo these views in his unpublished Tractatus de iure magistratuum circa ecclesiastica and further elaborate the arguments in his posthumous De imperio. For the circumstances of these two tracts see the thorough introduction to De Imperio Summarum Potestatum Circa Sacra, trans. Harm-Jan van Dam (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 15–16.
- 20.
Herodes ende Pilatus Vereenight (n.p., 1660).
- 21.
Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 547.
- 22.
W. B. Patterson argues that despite initial concord, James turned against Grotius for twisting his words. King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 145.
- 23.
Henk Nellen traces Grotius’ devious manipulations in this decade and sees Ordinum pietas as an effort to co-opt the English to the Remonstrant cause. Hugo Grotius: A Lifelong Struggle for Peace in Church and State, 1583-1645 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 172.
- 24.
Ordinum Hollandiae ac Westfrisiae Pietas, trans. Edwin Rabbie (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 123.
- 25.
De Heeren Stateen van Hollandt ende West-Frieslandt Godts-Diensteicheyt (Hague: 1613), 66.
- 26.
Resolvtie vande Doorluchtighe Moghende Heeren Staten van Hollant ende West-Vrieslandt tot Den Vrede Der Kercken (The Hague, 1614).
- 27.
Van Lieburg shows the careful preparation that went into this Synod, drawing on delegates with experience in lower councils and choosing sober leaders. “Dordrecht’s own Decretum Horribile,” 105.
- 28.
Oratie Ghedaen door den Doorluchtighen Eerentvesten Welgebornen Heere Dudley Carleton (n.p., 1617), A4r.
- 29.
Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 590.
- 30.
Ivstificatie vande Resolutie Der H. M. Heeren de Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt ghenomen den 4. Augusti 1617 (n.p., 1618), 15.
- 31.
Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 595.
- 32.
Den Tex includes the resolution in his Dutch edition. Oldenbarnevelt (Haarlem: Tjenk Willink, 1970), 4:594.
- 33.
Carleton complained to his predecessor that Ogle, who commanded a crucial garrison, was the “most affected to the [Arminians],” of any Englishman in the Low Countries. Letters from and to Sir Dudley Carleton (London, 1775), 190.
- 34.
Oranges Cloeck Beleydt (n.p., 1618), A2v.
- 35.
Historians have treated the Synod as a triumph for strict Calvinism, which became the orthodoxy of the public church, but as Christine Kooi notes, a significant portion of the “multiconfessional” Dutch Republic participated in other churches even after the Synod. “The Synod of Dordrecht after Four Hundred Years,” Archive for Reformation History 111 (2020), 293.
- 36.
As Patrick Collinson argues, some in England feared that the manifestation of Arminian thought in England represented the beginning of a return to Catholicism. From Cranmer to Sancroft (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), 96.
- 37.
Tyacke argues that despite the official Calvinism espoused at Hampton Court, a tradition of English “anti-Calvinist” practices survived and would later be labeled “Arminian.” Anti-Calvinists, 5.
- 38.
Lori Anne Ferrell explores James’s self-image as England’s “Constantine,” a learned Christian monarch who could settle theological disputes both at home and abroad. Government by Polemic: James I, the King’s Preachers, and the Rhetorics of Conformity, 1603-1625 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 115–16.
- 39.
SP 14/94/74. December 20 1617.
- 40.
SP 14/94/76. December 22, 1617. Edward Harwood to Dudley Carleton.
- 41.
Anthony Milton includes James’s instructions in his anthology The British Delegation and the Synod of Dort (1618–1619) (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005), 94.
- 42.
Peter Lake, “Calvinism and the English Church, 1570-1635,” Past and Present 114 (1987), 52. Margo Todd shows that the British delegates tried unsuccessfully to reincorporate the Remonstrants into the outcome of the Synod. “Justifying God: The Calvinisms of the British Delegation to the Synod of Dort,” Archive for Reformation History 96 (2005), 288–89.
- 43.
A Catalogve of the Depvties (London, 1618), A3 r.
- 44.
His Maiesties Declaration concerning His Proceedings with the States generall of the Vnited Prouinces of the Low Countreys, In the Cause of D. Conradus Vorstius (London, 1612), 15.
- 45.
Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603–1624: Jacobean Letters, ed. Maurice Lee (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1972), 226 (26 November 1616).
- 46.
Milton, British Delegation, 5.
- 47.
In the autumn of 1617, Carleton related that the Advocate had told him he was “of the opinion of the Contraremonstrants though he holds for the Remonstrants, in that he thinks and maintains there may be a toleration of both, which the Contraremonstrants cannot admit.” Jacobean Letters, 243 (12 September 1617).
- 48.
Patrick Timmis argues that the tragedy does take up theological issues, particularly on the issue of the saints’ assurance of salvation, to condemn the Arminian view. “John Donne in the Hague and the Hague at the Globe: Performing Reformation England’s Religio-Political Doctrine of Perseverance,” JMEMS 53.2 (2023), 422.
- 49.
Ivo Kamps’s thoughtful reading of the play’s competing historiographies points to the unstable “providential” narrative at work in the tragedy. Historiography and Ideology in Stuart Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 148.
- 50.
Ouerburie His Wife, I8 r.
- 51.
Scherp-sinnighe Characteren (Antwerp, 1622), 64. Martine van Elk compares English and Dutch treatments of women in public, showing that some Dutch treatises on female roles, such as Jacob Cats’s Houwelick, imagined slightly greater freedom for Dutch women. Early Modern Women’s Writing: Domesticity, Privacy, and the Public Sphere in England and the Dutch Republic (New York: Palgrave, 2017), 43.
- 52.
Hoenselaars argues that the gentlewoman’s praise of obedience resonates with the English garrison’s obedience to the Dutch state. Images of Englishmen and Foreigners, 154.
- 53.
The two plots—coming from opposite ends of the religious spectrum—and his miraculous deliverance from them had become closely linked in the king’s mind. Ferrell, Government by Polemic, 72. Kamps sees this speech as making “explicit” the popular link between Arminianism and Catholicism. Historiography, 160. As I suggest here, the speech’s significance comes in linking Barnavelt not to Catholicism but to religious extremism, making the play relevant to an English audience.
- 54.
As Dudley Carleton reported, the critics of Maurits accused him of “affect[ing] the sovereignty of the country to himself and his house.” Letters from and to Sir Dudley Carleton, 182. Marco Barducci shows that Grotius wrote at length in this period in order to curb the “monarchical pretentions of the stadholder.” Hugo Grotius and the Centry of Revolution, 1613–1718: Transnational Reception in English Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 73.
- 55.
As Herbert H. Rowen argues, Maurits stepped into an area without legal precedent, that “stage in a revolution where new law is created.” The Princes of Orange: Stadholders in the Dutch Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 50.
- 56.
Carleton reports to Naunton that Oldenbarnevelt had written to Maurits on the night before the execution to ask why he so determinedly sought the Advocaat’s death. Letters from and to Sir Dudley Carleton, 363.
- 57.
At key moments in James’s reign—such as at the outbreak of the Thirty Years War, in which James failed to provide support for his Protestant daughter and son-in-law, occurring just as Barnavelt was coming to the stage—his unpopular decisions caused tension between the king and his people. Kevin Sharpe examines the impact that James’s accession had in “rationaliz[ing] the political culture, making debate about government, even monarchy, acceptable.” Remap** Early Modern England: The Culture of Seventeenth Century Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 21.
- 58.
Moreover, as Charles Prior argues, James and his apologists emphasized the relationship between the king’s absolute sovereignty and his ability to direct the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Defining the Jacobean Church, 75.
- 59.
“Trew Law of Free Monarchies,” 75.
- 60.
Mary Nyquist argues that James inverts theories of contractual rule to argue that dissatisfied subjects must patiently bear even the yoke of a tyrant. Arbitrary Rule: Slavery, Tyranny, and the Power of Life and Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 136.
- 61.
Jonathan Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 58.
- 62.
“The Form of Apology and Satisfaction, 20 June 1604” and “James I: speech at the prorogation of parliament, 7 July 1604,” in The Stuart Constitution, 1603-1688: Documents and Commentary, ed. J. P. Kenyon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 31, 37.
- 63.
“Speach to the Lords and Commons of Parliament” (21 March 1610), 181, 184. In James’s 1616 speech to the Star Chamber he compared the “presumption and high contempt in a Subiect, to dispute what a King can doe” to the blasphemy of disputing “what God can doe” (214).
- 64.
Theodore K. Rabb, Jacobean Gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys, 1561-1629 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998), 193, 202–5.
- 65.
Goldberg discusses the absolutist aesthetic inspired by arcana imperii in James I, 68.
- 66.
Kings Right (London, 1619), B3v.
- 67.
Andrew Thrush discusses James’s efforts to find the revenues that would allow him to rule without Parliament. “The Personal Rule of James I, 1611-1620,” in Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain, ed. Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust, and Peter Lake (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 93.
- 68.
Timmis notes that Modesbargen frames this falling away in theological terms. “John Donne,” 422.
- 69.
As Kimberly Hackett argues, the tragedy treats neither Orange nor Barnavelt as simply “good and bad or right and wrong.” “The English Reception of Oldenbarnevelt’s Fall,” HLQ 77.2 (2014), 172.
- 70.
G. K. Hunter considers the tragedy “daring” for its representation of Orange as a calculating politician. English Drama, 1586–1642: The Age of Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 490.
- 71.
Meg Powers Livingston argues the playwrights, who wrote a lost play (The Jeweller of Amsterdam) about corruption surrounding Maurits, knew of some of Maurits’s vices. “The Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt: A Re-examination of Fletcher and Massinger's Sources,” Shakespeare Yearbook 15 (2005), 72. Dudley Carleton reported the scandal of “one of Count Maurice’s chamber” participating in the crime. Jacobean Letters, 199 (1 May 1616).
- 72.
Den Tex discusses Zeeland’s plan to make Maurits a Count and Oldenbarnevelt’s intervention to prevent that action. Oldenbarnevelt, 311. Lisa Jardine highlights the House of Orange’s efforts to acquire a regal title. Going Dutch, 67.
- 73.
Dudley Carleton reported that the Remonstrants spread rumors “that Count Maurice doth aim at the sovereignty of the country.” Jacobean Letters, 243 (12 September 1617). Glimpses of Maurits’ authoritarian leanings appear in accounts of his purges of the vroedschappen. See, for instance, the account of Maurits ejecting Remonstrants from the municipal government of Rotterdam after Grotius’s arrest: Maurits sent the army to occupy city hall, then swept in and “de oude Vroedt-schappen ontboden ende … haren Eedt ontslaghen [summoned the old Municipal Council and…dissolved their oaths].” Verkiesinghe des Magistraets tot Rotterdam (Rotterdam, 1618), A2v. Sierhuis highlights the view of a vocal minority that accused Maurits of tyrannical dealings in engineering Oldenbarnevelt’s execution. Arminian Controversy, 163.
- 74.
Triumphe tot Amsterdam Over het Incomen van den Hooch-gheboren Vorst Mauritius Prince van Orangien (Leiden, 1618), A3.
- 75.
Den Tex discusses Oldenbarnevelt’s efforts to prevent Maurits from accepting this English honor. Oldenbarnevelt, 490. The French viewed Oldenbarnevelt as their best ally in the Dutch Republic; after his arrest, Louis XIII’s ambassador warned the Dutch to be wary of Maurits, “lest one day he take away their liberties.” Calendar of State Papers … Venice, ed. Alan B. Hinds, vol. 15 (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1909), 327 [30 September 1618].
- 76.
Kamps smartly points to Orange’s cynical recourse to such language as he takes matters into his own hands in a play that contests the notion of providential history. Historiography, 148.
- 77.
“Trew Law,” 65. “Speech” (21 March 1610), 181. For James’s use of this paternal image and its significance in justifying his absolute dominion, see Goldberg, James I, 87.
- 78.
Susan Broomhall and Jacqueline van Gent argue that as William’s eldest Protestant son, Maurits assumed the role of pater familias as part of his public role in the Low Countries. “In the Name of the Father: Conceptualizing Pater Familia in the Letters of William the Silent’s Children,” RQ 62 (2009), 1161.
- 79.
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. Thomas North (London, 1612), 776.
- 80.
Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), ed. J. D. Duff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 1.128.
- 81.
Edward Paleit argues that early modern translators and editors approached Lucan from a variety of ideological perspectives. War, Liberty, and Caesar: Responses to Lucan’s Bellum Civile, ca. 1580–1650 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 95.
- 82.
Lucans Pharsalia: Containing the Ciuill Warres betweene Caesar and Pompey, trans. Arthur Gorges (London, 1614), p 59.
- 83.
Norbrook argues that for Gorges and others the Pharsalia presented a point of entry into a “universal struggle between absolutist and republican values.” Writing the English Republic, 34.
- 84.
Taken in by the period’s propaganda, Margot Heinemann emphasizes Barnavelt’s Hispanophilia. Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition Drama Under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 203.
- 85.
Paleit argues that Massinger and Fletcher criticizing courtly corruption rather than articulating a clearly republican ideology. War, Liberty, and Caesar, 150.
- 86.
A Proclamation Given by the Discreet Lords and States against the slanders laid vpon the Euangelicall and Reformed Religion by the Arminians and Separatists (London, 1618) concludes with Ledenberg’s suicide (18). Another account appears in A Trve Discovery of Those Treasons of which Geilis Van Ledenberch was a Practicer (London, 1619), D4 v. Dudley Carleton offered details to Chamberlain. Jacobean Letters, 260 (28 September 1618).
- 87.
SP 14/107/43. [19 March 1619].
- 88.
Dutton, Licensing, 11.
- 89.
The letter is one of the documents printed in The Low Countries in Early Modern Times, ed. Herbert Rowen (New York: Walker, 1972), 124.
- 90.
Barnevels Apology: Or Holland Mysterie with Marginall Castigations (London, 1618), D2r, C4v.
- 91.
Dutton argues that Buc may have tried to rewrite the most dangerous passages rather than ban the play. Mastering, 215.
- 92.
As G. E. Bentley observes, the actors could make the tragedy’s ironies more pointed in performance. The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare’s Time, 1590–1642 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 179.
- 93.
Phyllis Rackin, Stages of History: Shakespeare’s English Chronicles (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 29.
- 94.
SP 14/109/61. [31 May 1619].
- 95.
SP 14/110/37. [27 August 1619].
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Fleck, A. (2024). These Factions and Schisms: Countering Absolutist Thought in Church and State. In: English National Identity and the Image of the Dutch . Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42910-1_4
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