e
difficult to answer, and because it was not intended that the accused
should have the benefit of counsel.

An urgent and last appeal was now written late at night, and signed by
each member of the family, to his Excellency the Prince and the judge
commissioners, to this effect:

"The afflicted wife and children of M. van Barneveld humbly show that
having heard the sorrowful tidings of his coming execution, they humbly
beg that it may be granted them to see and speak to him for the last
time."

The two sons delivered this petition at four o'clock in the morning into
the hands of de Voogd, one of the judges. It was duly laid before the
commission, but the prisoner was never informed, when declining a last
interview with his family, how urgently they had themselves solicited the
boon.

Louise de Coligny, on hearing late at night the awful news, had been
struck with grief and horror. She endeavoured, late as it was, to do
something to avert the doom of one she so much revered, the man on whom
her illustrious husband had leaned his life long as on a staff of iron.
She besought an interview of the Stadholder, but it was refused. The wife
of William the Silent had no influence at that dire moment with her
stepson. She was informed at first that Maurice was asleep, and at four
in the morning that all intervention was useless.

The faithful and energetic du Maurier, who had already exhausted himself
in efforts to save the life of the great prisoner, now made a last
appeal. He, too, heard at four o'clock in the morning of the 13th that
sentence of death was to be pronounced. Before five o'clock he made
urgent application to be heard before the Assembly of the States-General
as ambassador of a friendly sovereign who took the deepest interest in
the welfare of the Republic and the fate of its illustrious statesman.
The appeal was refused. As a last resource he drew up an earnest and
eloquent letter to the States-General, urging clemency in the name of his
king. It was of no avail. The letter may still be seen in the Royal
Archives at the Hague, drawn up entirely in du Maurier's clear and
beautiful handwriting. Although possibly a, first draft, written as it
was under such a mortal pressure for time, its pages have not one erasure
or correction.

It was seven o'clock. Barneveld having observed by the preacher (La
Motte's) manner that he was not likely to convey the last messages which
he had mentioned to his wife and child