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There were conferences in which Grotius met Prince Maurice, and taught him that Olden Barneveldt was not the only man of capacity in the ranks of the Remonstrants whom he had to fear.

At fifteen Grotius accompanied Count Justin of Nassau, and the grand pensionary J. van Olden Barneveldt on their special embassy to the court of France.

This fact determined the stadtholder, Maurice of Nassau, to support the orthodox party—a party to which he inclined the more readily that Olden Barneveldt, the grand pensionary, the man whose uprightness and abilities he most dreaded, sided with the Remonstrants.

The grand pensionary, Olden Barneveldt, the leader of the Remonstrant party, Grotius and Hoogerbeets were arrested, brought to trial, and condemned—Olden Barneveldt to death, and Grotius to imprisonment for life and confiscation of his property.

All Amsterdam discovered, with smothered delight, that under the name of the hero was thinly concealed the figure of Barneveldt, whose execution in 1618 had been a triumph of the hated Calvinists.