Two incompatible political models: transfer or disruption?

The show-process in which Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the Grand-Pensionary of the States of Holland and true political leader of the Republic, had been found guilty led to his execution on May 13 of the year 1619. Tellingly, this was only four days after the international Synod of Dordt had had its final meeting. In this Synod the orthodox Counter-Remonstrant parties, supported by stadholder Maurits, had gotten the upper hand. After Oldenbarnevelt's removal they had every opportunity to clear the Republic of what they considered to be religiously impure. Many people were intimidated, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, or banned, and a considerable number were threatened with the rack. Some were tortured severely; others were executed or imprisoned and found themselves in circumstances that would surely lead to their death. For instance, because of his Remonstrant or Arminian preaching in the Republic, one Johannes Grevius had earned a lifelong sentence, to be served in the Amsterdam prison. Given the circumstances and with his constitution he would have survived no more than a few years of imprisonment at best. Moreover, before his imprisonment Grevius had been tortured severely. It led him to write one of Europe's first elaborate treatises against the use of torture, Tribunal reformatum, in 1624. He could not have written it, however, had he not been freed.

In mid-August 1621 one of the officially banned ministers, Dominicus Sapma, tried to free two of his colleagues: the aforementioned Grevius and Samuel de Prince. Both were imprisoned in the Amsterdam tuchthuis, the house of correction, punishment, or discipline. Sapma's first attempt failed. Just a little later, and by mere coincidence, Sapma was recognized while walking in the streets of Amsterdam and immediately imprisoned himself. Yet, he managed to escape disguised in the clothes of his wife, Grietje Ulbes, who had come to visit him and now had to stay in prison. This allowed Sapma to continue his attempts to free his friends—helped, this time, by companions, copied keys, and ladders. A third attempt was successful, and a little later his wife was released without much ado. There is a contemporaneous song about the escape, called ‘On the salvation of Samuel de Prince and Johannes Grevius’.