ion,
which had been dissolved a year before, after having completed its work,
could be deemed competent to emit afterwards a judicial decision. But the
fact is curious as giving one more proof of the irregular,
unphilosophical, and inequitable nature of these famous proceedings.

CHAPTER XXII.

Grotius urged to ask Forgiveness--Grotius shows great Weakness--
Hoogerbeets and Grotius imprisoned for Life--Grotius confined at
Loevestein--Grotius' early Attainments--Grotius' Deportment in
Prison--Escape of Grotius--Deventer's Rage at Grotius' Escape.

Two days after the execution of the Advocate, judgment was pronounced
upon Gillis van Ledenberg. It would have been difficult to try him, or to
extort a confession of high-treason from him by the rack or otherwise, as
the unfortunate gentleman had been dead for more than seven months.

Not often has a court of justice pronounced a man, without trial, to be
guilty of a capital offence. 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.

His unburied corpse, reduced to the condition of a mummy, was brought out
of its lurking-place, thrust into a coffin, dragged on a hurdle to the
Golgotha outside the Hague, on the road to Ryswyk, and there hung on a
gibbet in company of the bodies of other malefactors swinging there in
chains.

His prudent scheme to save his property for his children by committing
suicide in prison was thus thwarted.

The reading of the sentence of Ledenberg, as had been previously the case
with that of Barneveld, had been heard by Grotius through the open window
of his prison, as he lay on his bed. The scaffold on which the Advocate
had suffered was left standing, three executioners were still in the
town, and there was every reason for both Grotius and Hoogerbeets to
expect a similar doom. Great efforts were made to induce the friends of
the distinguished prisoners to sue for their pardon. But even as in the
case of the Barneveld family these attempts were fruitless. The austere
stoicism both on the part of the sufferers and their relatives excites
something like wonder.

Three of the judges went in person to the prison chamber of Hoogerbeets,
urging him to ask forgiveness himself or to allow his friends to demand
it for him.

"If my wife and children do ask," he said, "I will protest against it. I
need no pardon. Let ju