e documents connected with the
famous trial were for a long time hidden from mortal view, for
Barneveld's judges had bound themselves by oath to bury the proceedings
out of sight. And the concealment lasted for centuries. Very recently a
small portion of those papers has been published by the Historical
Society of Utrecht. The "Verhooren," or Interrogatories of the Judges,
and the replies of Barneveld, have thus been laid before the reading
public of Holland, while within the last two years the distinguished and
learned historian, Professor Fruin, has edited the "Verhooren" of Hugo
Grotius.

But papers like these, important as they are, make but a slender portion
of the material out of which a judgment concerning these grave events can
be constructed. I do not therefore offer an apology for the somewhat
copious extracts which I have translated and given in these volumes from
the correspondence of Barneveld and from other manuscripts of great
value--most of them in the Royal Archives of Holland and Belgium--which
are unknown to the public.

I have avoided as much as possible any dealings with the theological
controversies so closely connected with the events which I have attempted
to describe. This work aims at being a political study. The subject is
full of lessons, examples, and warnings for the inhabitants of all free
states. Especially now that the republican system of government is
undergoing a series of experiments with more or less success in one
hemisphere--while in our own land it is consolidated, powerful, and
unchallenged--will the conflicts between the spirits of national
centralization and of provincial sovereignty, and the struggle between
the church, the sword, and the magistracy for supremacy in a free
commonwealth, as revealed in the first considerable republic of modern
history, be found suggestive of deep reflection.

Those who look in this work for a history of the Synod of Dordtrecht will
look in vain. The Author has neither wish nor power to grapple with the
mysteries and passions which at that epoch possessed so many souls. The
Assembly marks a political period. Its political aspects have been
anxiously examined, but beyond the ecclesiastical threshold there has
been no attempt to penetrate.

It was necessary for my purpose to describe in some detail the relations
of Henry IV. with the Dutch Republic during the last and most pregnant
year of his life, which makes the first of the present histor