OLDENBARNEVELDT, JOHAN VAN (1547-1619) , Dutch statesman, was born at Amersfoort on Sept. 14, After studying law at Louvain, Bourges and Heidelberg, and travelling in France and Italy, Oldenbarneveldt settled down to practise in the law courts at The Hague. In religion a moderate Calvinist, he became a zealous adherent of William the Silent. He served as a volunteer for the relief of Haarlem (1573) and again at Leiden (1574). In 1576 he became pensionary of Rotter dam. He was active in promoting the Union of Utrecht (1579) and the acceptance of the countship of Holland and Zeeland by William (1584). On the assassination of William it was at the proposal of Oldenbarneveldt that the youthful Maurice of Nas sau was at once elected stadtholder, captain-general and admiral of Holland. During the governorship of Leicester he was the leader of the strenuous opposition offered by the States of Hol land to the centralizing policy of the governor.
In 1586 he was appointed, in succession to Paul Buys, to the post of Land's Advocate of Holland. Nominally the servant of the States of Holland he made himself politically the personifica tion of the province which bore more than half the entire charge of the union, and as its mouthpiece in the states-general he prac tically dominated that assembly.
During the two critical years which followed the withdrawal of Leicester, he prevented the disintegration of the United Prov inces, which might otherwise have fallen an easy conquest to the army of Alexander of Parma. Fortunately for the Nether lands the attention of Philip of Spain was at that time riveted upon his contemplated invasion of England, and Oldenbarneveldt had time to gather into his own hands the control of administra tive affairs. He was wholeheartedly supported by Maurice of Nas sau, who, after 1589, held the Stadholderate of five provinces, and was likewise captain-general and admiral of the union. The first rift between them came in 1600, when Maurice was forced against his will by the states-general, under the advocate's influence, to undertake an expedition into Flanders, which was only saved from disaster by desperate efforts which ended in victory at Nieuwport. In 1598 Oldenbarneveldt took part in special em
bassies to Henry IV. and Elizabeth, and again in i6o5 in a special mission sent to congratulate James I. on his accession.
The opening of negotiations by Albert and Isabel in 16o6 for a peace or long truce led to a great division of opinion in the Netherlands. The archdukes having consented to treat with the United Provinces "as free provinces and states over which they had no pretensions." Oldenbarneveldt, who had with him the States of Holland and the majority of burgher regents through out the country, was for peace, provided that liberty of trading was conceded. Maurice and his cousin William Louis, stadtholder of Frisia, with the military and naval leaders and the Calvinist clergy, were opposed to it, on the ground that the Spanish king was merely seeking an interval of repose in which to recuperate his strength for a renewed attack on the independence of the Netherlands. For some three years the negotiations went on, but at last after endless parleying, on April 9, 1609, a truce for twelve years was concluded. All that the Dutch asked was directly or indirectly granted, and Maurice gave a reluctant assent to the favourable conditions obtained by Oldenbarneveldt.